Radar Detector Useful in California - Laser?
 

I have been looking into the possiblity of a radar detector. I live in north san diego county, in California. Many have suggested a radar detector is fairly useless around here due to the prevalence of officers utilizing instant laser units so that the detector doesn't have a chance of warning you.

Any thoughts?

Any recommended units. I would be more interested in best for the money than just best period. I would also be more interested in accuracy of warnings than just all out sensitivity. False alerts constantly would just cause me to stop using it.

http://www.policemag.com/_Images/art...2radar-1-2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/VE0DlvD.jpg

http://images.wikia.com/starwars/ima...Deflection.jpg

http://labaldtienda.com/67-318-thick...s-fuck-yea.jpg

I'm so confused.

Laser detectors are fairly useless. Laser's don't really give you warnings. If it goes off, your speed has already been calculated. Its not like a radar where you will get a warning from your detector before you are actually measured.

Most people that are worried go about setting up laser jammers (which technically don't jam the laser, just confuse it), not detectors. But that's a whole other ball game.

Yea from my understanding those are illegal, and quite costly.

I have an Escort Passport 9500ix that I got when Slickdeals had them on sale. Got laser warning for the first time yesterday. I set mine up to avoid K-band, but look for Ka, X, and other bands and it doesn't go off due to store automatic doors too often. Once it picks up a false twice, it stores the GPS location and learns to ignore it.

I also have the 9500ix but in blue that I got a few years back. transferring it over to my BRZ and now I wish I got red so it matches :(

but yeah, no matter what radar detector you get, if the cops (mainly CHP) use laser then you're screwed unless you have a laser jammer. and a laser jammer is illegal plus easy to tell from the cop's side.

however, I have only encountered a few CHP who use laser and most of them still use a radar gun. not to mention, my detector goes off whenever one of those new CHP SUV's roll by. I guess they have a radar gun that's always on or something.

Thanks for chiming in. Do you utilize escort live? I am trying to evaluate the different detectors and the costs associated with a gps device that uses live, especially when premium is so expensive.

Although laser/lidar is used a lot around us, I still have my detector go off for KA.
Hell, in the last few years I've had like 25-1 with radar being used more than laser. It'll freak you out the first time laser goes off though lol. But as others have said, you wont really get any warning with a laser detector other than pull over(if speeding).
Laser jammers are not illegal.

If the radar detector saves you once, its paid off...

I haven't used escort live(thats the app service that connects via bluetooth, right?). But, any one of the new detectors+live seems like it would be pretty effective. Plus, using escort live with an 8500 or something basically makes it a 9500i since you can record lock outs and such-so it might be cheaper going that route?

I utilize my detector as a tool. Most of the time I'm not speeding around, but its just one more "check" to help me watch speed/be careful.

I don't use Escort Live. I also don't drive recklessly so most of the time my detector goes off, I'm only like within 5 MPH of the speed limit. Escort Live isn't really that useful for me since I don't live in a highly populated area like LA and Live only works if there's other people in the area inputting that data for you to see. I would assume Waze would work as well for you, and it's free. not to mention our HU is capable of having traffic camera warnings set up in it. you just need to either manually get the coordinates of known cameras or DL a database (usually a subscription) for it.